The Boy Scouts to the rescue

What can be accomplished on Staten Island by a group of dedicated volunteers was demonstrated a few days ago at Chapin Woods. It’s a good example for all of us.

Located in Dongan Hills on the edge of the Greenbelt, Chapin Woods is part of the Reed’s Basket Willow Swamp, a 52-acre park owned by the city after acquiring it from a developer.

There the east bank of Chapin Woods Pond was breached by the disputed and now suspended preparation of a homesite on an adjacent plot of land on Todt Hill.

Water was draining from the stream-fed pond, which threatened to kill fish, drive away birds and harm for generations the delicate natural environment.

Enter members of Boy Scout Troop 37.

The group, which is sponsored by St. Teresa’s School in Castleton Corners, assembled to save the pond.

Determined to shore up the leaking bank, more than 40 Scouts and their adult leaders turned out with the OK of the city Department of Parks and Recreation.

“This is perfect for us - it’s a no-brainer,” said Scoutmaster Mike Di Trani of Troop 37’s efforts at Chapin Woods Pond. “Boy Scouts use nature more than any other youth group - and we give back.”

For the past several years, Troop 37 has maintained the Deere Park section of the Blue Trail in the Greenbelt.

To firm up the edge of the pond in Chapin Woods, the Boy Scouts worked with sledge hammers, pry-bars, pickaxes, shovels, loppers and buckets. ”This is really important,” said Dean Berato, 15, who lives in Westerleigh. “It’s such a fragile ecosystem here and it’s nice to protect something that’s our own.”

A short distance from the pond, the Scouts collected pieces of a fieldstone foundation and concrete staircase, the remains left where a house once stood. They broke up stone fragments and rocks, an ideal combination for shoring up the bank of the endangered pond.

“This whole pond was leaking out,” said Joseph Nadal, 12, of Great Kills. “We’re building up the [breached bank] and filling it in with rocks and dirt.”

If nothing were to be done to maintain the water level, the pond would deteriorate over the course of a few years into a swamp, with only skunk cabbage.

It would be a gloomy fate for part of the city-designated Special Natural Area District, a place where a bald eagle was spotted last fall above the treetops.

The work of Troop 37 met with the enthusiastic approval of Steven LoBaido, who grew up roaming through Chapin Woods and became a long-time advocate of protecting the land as part of the Greenbelt.

“I’m choking up,” said Mr. LoBaido who still lives in Dongan Hills, his eyes welling up with tears as he watched the Scouts finish their work. “It’s pretty amazing. I wish the city would move as fast as these kids did today.”

It just goes to show how Staten Islanders can, and so often do, help themselves rather than simply griping about problems or waiting for government to solve them.